552 WILD ANIMALS. 



exceedingly short in proportion. On examination we found he 

 had been dreadfully wounded. Both legs were broken, one hip- 

 joint, and the root of the spine completely shattered, and two bullets 

 were found flattened in his neck and jaws ! Yet he was still alive 

 when he fell. The two Chinamen carried him home tied to a pole, 

 and I was occupied with Charley the whole of the next day pre- 

 paring the skin and boiling the bones to make a perfect skeleton, 

 which are now preserved in the museum at Derby." 



When hard pressed the mias will attack his antagonist with 

 considerable ferocity, and prove himself a dangerous adversary. 

 Upon this subject Mr. Wallace tells the following story: — "On 

 June 4th, some Dyaks came to tell us that the day before a mias 

 had nearly killed one of their companions. A few miles down 

 the river there is a Dyak house, and the inhabitants saw a large 

 Orang feeding on the young shoots of a palm by the river-side. 

 On being alarmed he retreated towards the jungle, which was 

 close by, and a number of the men, armed with spears and 

 choppers, ran out to intercept him. The man who was in front 

 tried to run his spear through the animal's body, but the mias 

 seized it in his hands, and in an instant got hold of the man's 

 arm, which he seized in his mouth, making his teeth meet in the 

 flesh above the elbow, which he tore and lacerated in a dreadful 

 manner. Had not the others been close behind, the man would 

 have been more seriously injured, if not killed, as he was quite 

 powerless; but they soon destroyed the creature with their 

 spears and choppers. The man remained ill for a long. time, and 

 never fully recovered the use of his arm." 



On one occasion Mr. Wallace shot a female which, with several 

 young ones, he saw feeding on a durcan-tree with unripe fruit. 

 "As soon as she saw us," he writes, "she began breaking off 

 branches and the great spiny fruits with every appearance of 

 rage, causing such a shower of missiles as efiectually kept us 

 from approaching too near the tree. This habit of throwing 

 down branches when irritated has been doubted, but I have, as 

 here narrated, observed it myself on at least three separate 

 occasions. It was, however, always the female mias who be- 

 haved in this way, and it may be that the male, trusting more 



